Angela Natividad's Live & Uncensored!

30 January 2017

A lot of people feel helpless right now because Rome is burning, etc. Many of us are looking for things to do. Here are a few I've managed to drum up.

This list isn't so different from many you've probably seen circulating the 'net, but mine is specific to what feels feasible for me and people like me—media-oriented folks who are fairly active on social and can make somewhat liberal decisions about how they spend their time. Maybe something will resonate with you. (Also, please consider this a supplement to calling your congresspeople and voting, which I hope you're doing already, if you're able.)

Also, this was inspired by Michael Miraflor, who asked his Facebook followers how media/ad folks can be useful.

DONATE

If donating is all you're able to do right now, here's a list of nine organisations that help refugees, and Arabs or Muslims that the administration is Hitlering. This includes the ACLU, which filed a petition for habeas corpus that empowered a federal judge to issue a stay on that one guy's executive order, barring people from certain countries—including green card holders and veterans—from entering or re-entering the country for the immediate future.

I also advocate for brands to demonstrate their dissent—not just by saying stuff, but also by putting money where it matters, like Lyft just did for the ACLU. It's proof of values, and anybody in a position of power can bend the world by using it to support systems for good.

Lastly, I recommend donating to reputable news sites, like The Guardian, PBS or NPR. We need them now more than ever. The latter two are especially endangered as they benefit from the federal cultural program budget—which makes up 0.02% of federal spending, and which the regime wants to cut.

Also, you might get a tote bag! Hurray for tote bags.

FOLLOW

Rogue government accounts. US government agencies and workers will now have a harder time relaying actual facts to constituents. These include NOAA, NASA, the CDC, and even the bloody National Park Service. Scientists and other dissenters have, as a result, mounted rogue Twitter accounts to go on enforcing their duties to Americans and the world at large.

HELP DEFUND LIES

Alternate facts and fake news are euphemisms for, well, lies. If you want to politicise it, call it propaganda. One of the biggest tools that helped organise and fuel the Alt Right are sites that slant truth to stoke fear, suspicion and the desire to retaliate against people who are generally just pursuing the right to wake up in the morning without fear of reprisal, deportation or getting groped on public transport.

An organisation called Sleeping Giants is encouraging people to screenshot ads that appear alongside content from Breitbart, then tweet them to companies so they'll cut them out of their programmatic ad buys. It's not an all-encompassing solution, but it hurts Steve Bannon's misery vehicle and puts mass pressure on companies to take ownership of where their content appears (and what it endorses by proximity).

CURATE CONSCIOUSLY

A lot of us have gotten caught up in the whirling dervish of sharing stuff we think is important via Facebook and Twitter. I know it's an act that's easy to write off, but it's perfectly valid dissent. Why? Because I'm a Game of Thrones fan.

Why that matters: I didn't care about GoT. I was totally impermeable to its marketing and story. Never read the books. But the fact that I heard it, saw reactions to it and was accosted by an unending array of memes about it throughout my social life (online and offline) made it feel important by proximity. Never underestimate the power of FOMO.

You might think you're preaching to the choir, but you really don't know who sees what you're doing. (And considering that the Gov is now considering asking visitors for their social media handles, your views could even have consequences. Don't think they won't start poking into what Americans are doing.)

To curate effectively, work out what kind of news sources you can trust to pass along. This image is a fair step in the right direction, but don't forget to vet data yourself. If something sparks an immediate, angry emotion, look for a source. Check the source to see if something small was taken out of context to spark a big feeling.

It costs nothing but a minute or two, and it makes everyone smarter. Including you.

DO PRO-BONO

Many of us aren't strangers to freelancing. And while we're all pressed for time, it's worth picking a cause, an organisation that supports it, and offering services. Make your capacities clear so they know what to tap you for. This can include copywriting, graphic design, coding, whatever.

Orgs need hands. They'll be glad to use yours, however much you can give. (Hadji Williams does this, and suggested it on Michael's stream. Thanks, Hadji.)

In this vein (and again, found on that same stream), check out:

Project Hive, a millennial-focused project run by the UN refugee committee that's looking for ways to raise awareness via digital.

Datakind, a company that works on projects based on whether they're using "data for good." Alongside Microsoft's Civic Tech department, they also hold monthly lectures on the subject. Chapters are open in lots of places.

The Taproot Foundation, which lets you post your pro-bono skills online so somebody who needs you can find you.

For all of the above, a hat-tip goes to Deborah Debroschka—and of course Michael, because, well, his stream and all.

LIVING IN NEW YORK? PICK YOUR CAUSE

Another jewel from Michael's stream: We Are New York Values, which makes local volunteering as easy as a click. Is beating Islamophobia your jam? What about gun violence, or providing legal assistance? Find your box, click and get ready to rumble. (H/T Anthony Tshering)

START A SYRIAN SUPPER CLUB

This is something I'm looking to kick off in Paris. Syrian Supper Clubs take many forms, but the idea is pretty much the same: Somebody cooks Syrian food, people pay for a seat at the table, and the money either goes to a non-profit org or a Syrian family. I really like this variation—where you tap a Syrian refugee to cook, invite others to eat and mix with your buddies, and the money goes to the cook and his/her fam. But the main SSC link has a toolkit, which is handy.

You don't have to organise one alone. Do it with friends, in a park, or talk your company or agency into hosting one. (Image credit: Matt Katz/WNYC.)

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR OPPORTUNITIES

Help takes shape in all kinds of ways. Your desire to help—to talk about things, to pore over what's possible—already makes a difference, and your contribution may take none of the forms I mentioned. Maybe it's just putting two people together who catalyse something important.

Don't take anything you could possibly do for granted, but don't let yourself get overwhelmed by the enormity of this task, either. Offering someone your seat on the bus, being kind, sticking up for a person who needs help, and expressing interest in people who are different from you are worth a world already.

10 January 2017

I have a good feeling about this year. This is all the cool shit I've already gotten into. Think of it as a catechism for navel-gazing. (Because I do.)

Listening:

If you liked the first season of Serial, you'll love Offshore. Brought to us by Honolulu Civil Beat and PRX, season one revolves around the killing of Kollin Elderts by a white mainland cop, and its relationship to an 80-year-old case and police violence today. You'll also learn about the complicated history of race and colonialism in Hawaii. I'm hooked.

The Hamilton Mixtape, free on Spotify or your streaming service of choice. I don't know what you're doing if you're not listening to this. Everybody's on it—including Nas, Regina Spektor, The Roots and even Ben Folds, but my favourite track so far is Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) by K'Naan. I don't know. It's catchy. Also, it's basically the theme of my whole life right now.

Aspects of the Novelby EM Forster. Nuggets include: "Scheherazade avoided her fate because she knew how to wield the weapon of suspense—the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages."

Studying:

I'm doing the James Patterson writing class on Masterclass.com. One of the best things about it so far has been checking the outline for Honeymoon (included in the workbook) against the final text of the book. I learned so much from that exercise alone.

The Penguin Galaxy Series boxed set designed by Alex Trochut (and featuring a series intro by Neil Gaiman). It's low-hanging fruit for sci-fi fans. I've read most of these books, but now that I'm reading primarily on Kindle, I weigh the cost of owning a real book by emotional, iconic or artistic merit. This is a mouth-watering combination of all three.

Looking forward to:

AMERICAN FUCKING GODS ON STARZ!

Projects:

Sometimes being an expat means acting as a crossroads for people en route to elsewhere. You learn to get comfortable with friendship as shifting sand. So I've decided to ask all present and future friends to bring me something when we meet: A translation of The Little Prince, in hopes I can score all 253 translations before I die. More on this later, probably. I don't know how seriously I'm taking it yet ... but a German version is already on the way, along with a new friend!

I'm reorganising my bookcase (stacked—a first for me!) and am kicking off my first big Mystery Giveaway, in which one or two people get the whole lot of volumes transitioning off my shelf. Remember the mystery funpacks at the comic store, how you knew they were filled with crap but it only took one great discovery to make the cost worth it? That's how I feel about this. Except there's no cost; I'm covering everything, including shipping. (I really should have thought this through.)

03 January 2017

River of Gods was one of my favourite books of 2016. It takes place in a time when AI can (and often does) have a sense of self, an identity and capabilities that surpass us in a way we perceive as dangerous.

But it also posits that our sense of identity, our sense of self, is so fundamentally different from that of an AI that we can't even approach each other from the same rational framework. Mankind is characterised by slow data transmission: We have to go places, physically send things or speak in order to convey information, or make it travel.

An AI simply copies itself. It's an entity outside space/time; in the book, one AI assistant can be in many places at once, managing your live press conference in one locale while, elsewhere, answering emails, scheduling meetings and picking up calls.

The quote above is a fundamental question that highlights the difference between us and them: Can you actually know (and thus trust) an entity that can be here meeting you, but could conceivably also be here in a thousand other places at once?

In the film Her, this was one of the sticking points for our protagonist. He's having this big conversation with his sultry-voiced OS, a relationship-defining conversation, and he's thrown off by the fact that, however sincere and invested she seems, she's also having a hundred other discussions simultaneously. We can't quite do that, even on our best multi-tasking day.

But today the quote stuck out to me because I started thinking, well, we all do that anyway, within the realm of what is possible. The person I am to my parents is different from the one I am to my close friends, or people who know me exclusively online. Even if we were all to meet in the same room, some people may feel shades of the Angela they don't know, but mostly their existing picture of me would remain intact.

With this in mind, the biggest difference is that an AI can be all these Angelas simultaneously—having dinner with my parents in California while attending a meeting here in Paris.

We don't fear artificial intelligence because of its failure to meaningfully relate; we fear the way it challenges our own limitations, our mortality—the way we are enslaved to space/time.

From this angle, it seems petty. My hope in 2017 is not to want to be more than what I am. It doesn't seem to guide us toward anything good. (In River of Gods, it leads to war.)

Hurrah got offices, five employees and closed the year off with 3 awesome long-term clients

I appeared in my first panel in French!

I made my own soap

I KonMari'd and it totally changed my life

I learned to knit, and closed out the year with a big-ass blanket

I went to concerts!

I traveled—a lot. Not far, but I discovered new places

And the traveling and the friending and the magic looks like it'll continue into the new year. January is already packed with new work, trips and visits.

This is chapter 33 of my life. If I'm lucky, I get around 85 of these. You can't waste a whole chapter, or multiple chapters, on things or people you don't like when you could be doing otherwise. There just aren't enough of them.

So let's raise our glasses to the next chapter. The pages are virgin and resplendent in white. We can pick how we mark them. I want to assume that choice every day, even if there's failure and sadness. It's all building to something that I hope will be beautiful, and there's no beauty without strain or real stakes.

Now: off to write a "thankfulness" email to an old new friend in response to her "thankfulness" text, in part because I know she hates email.